One key ingredient that’s sparked Mount St. Mary’s success this season: fun

Mount St. Mary’s is 22-12 on the season, the most wins the program has had in season since 1988-89, and it enters the NCAA Tournament having won 11 of its last 14 games. Players and coaches were asked to pinpoint why they’ve been so successful in Year 1 under head coach Donny Lind, and a simple but underrated reason kept coming up: they’re having fun.

During their pre-NCAA Tournament news conference, sophomore guard Dallas Hobbs and junior forward Dola Adebayo were asked what Lind meant to program.

“Just the loving and caring nature of him,” Hobbs said. “He built those relationships really early on, and you tell he really cares, and it’s easy to play for a guy like him.”

“Main thing I noticed when he first started coaching us was practice was actually fun,” Adebayo said. “We still put in hard work, but we’re able to go out there with a smile on our faces and get the job done and not make it feel like it’s a job. It also helps it be easy to play for somebody like that.”

Even the style Lind has his team playing has enabled them to enjoy the ride. Hobbs was asked by media what it’s like to play with a point guard like senior Xavier Lipscomb who always looking to share the ball.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “It elevated my game a lot. Going into the season, I’ve just got to give credit to [Lipscomb] and Coach Lind because they had a vision of how they wanted the team, and it worked out.

“They wanted a well-balanced team. They wanted a team where it doesn’t matter who scores the ball, and that’s the culture we have. That’s the culture we built. It’s a lot of fun playing for it.”

Lind seemed pleased to hear Adebayo said he was having fun and shared the thinking behind his “have fun” philosophy.

“I’m glad he’s having fun,” Lind said. “I want our players to have fun. I fell in love with basketball when I was six or seven years old in New Knoxville, [Ohio], shooting on a little hoop outside my house. My son is nine right now. He’s falling in love with the game of basketball.

“I believe that we have the unbelievable privilege of coaching and playing a kids’ game for a living, for a full scholarship. No NIL money on this team, but maybe next year. But for a full scholarship and good food in our [cafeteria].”

Despite making the experience as enjoyable as possible, Lind made it clear that they’re still all-business at the end of the day.

“We should have fun with that,” he said. “It is an unbelievable joy to get to do this every day. For me, I want our guys to have that. We try to have a lot of fun. We keep things light. We compete a lot. Competing is fun for most guys. If you don’t like to compete, you probably won’t play for me very long.”

Lind shared a few of the ways he’s gone about keeping things light.

“Little things like every day a different guy gets to pick the music we listen to for practice,” he said. “You walk in the gym, and it’s your music playing, you perk up a little bit. Things like that I think loosen the mood for our guys and let them enjoy what they’re doing.

“I don’t yell and scream. I don’t think I’ve lost my mind too many times this year. I know we’re going to make mistakes. But I really try to get them to understand that if you can respond to those mistakes the right way. If we make practice competitive, then you’re doing to have chances to mess up, and you’re going to see it’s not the end of the world. But it’s how we get it back that matters.”

Considering the Mount is holding opponents to 37.5% shooting overall, 30.5% from 3-point range, and 65.1 points over the last 14 games, it’s hard to argue with the results. It’ll look to impose its brand of fun on American University in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament on Wednesday.